National Council of Nigeria and The Cameroons

National Council Of Nigeria And The Cameroons

National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), was a Nigerian political party from 1944 to 1966. The name included 'Cameroons' because Cameroon had become an administrative part of Nigeria in 1945. Cameroon had been a colonial territory of Germany. Following the defeat of Germany and its allies in World War II, the United Nations confiscated the territories under the administration of Germany before World War II. These territories were then given to various victor countries to administer them in trust for the UN until they were mature for political independence. They were then called Trust Territories. That was how Cameroon was taken from Germany and handed over to Britain. When Nigeria was preparing for the 1960 political independence, the people of southern Cameroon were consulted in a plebiscite on whether to go with Nigeria to independence or join up with the French Cameroon. The people opted for unification with the French Cameroon. Thus, NCNC became National Council of Nigerian Citizens in 1959. The party was formed in 1944 by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Herbert Macaulay. Herbert Macaulay was its first president, while Azikiwe was its first secretary. However, in general, it was made up of a rather long list of nationalist parties, cultural associations, and labor movements that joined to form NCNC. The party at the time was the second to take a concerted effort to create a true nationalist party. It embraced different sets of groups from the religious, to tribal and to trade groups with the exception of a few notable ones such as the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and early on the Nigerian Union of Teachers. The party is considered to be the third prominent political party formed in Nigeria after a Lagos-based party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party and the Nigerian Youth Movement.